


Cormorant

by lesbomancy



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Gen, Gun Violence, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 07:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: My Guardian, Lex, and her Fireteam descend into the Hellmouth for a Strike to curb Hive strength on the Moon.





	Cormorant

“Fortified strong points on all ground-based approaches on the main fortress. Telemetry data shows that each marked cavern entrance is a smaller fortress of its own, denser in biomass than the main sinkhole.”

Prac drew his finger along the screen, circling darker distortions in the topography.

“All other entrances have heavy Hive presence or tectonic anomalies making a landing unsuitable. Zavala gave us the choice of where to insert, I suggest we do so here. ”

Lex looked over to her left, a momentary glance as she brought the Minerva-class jumpship around for another pass. From as high as they were in the satellite's small gravitational field it all looked like bland, bumpy gray mass other than the Hellmouth itself.

“Why not the Gatehouse?” She asked aloud.

“Operation Full Moon is already underway. It's very likely that this gap in their defenses is due to the Strike team assaulting the Gatehouse.”

“What, don’t feel like playing with others?”

“Phoenix is enough of a person to be around. Adding multiple Guardians would just be asking for additional frustration.”

“You know she can hear you, right?” Lex glanced back to Prac. “The whole ‘drunk buffoon’ thing is just an act she does to irritate you.”

The Warlock hissed laughter as he checked his weapons. “As if anything could be more irritating than her reckless disregard for the mission. Vainglorious little-...”

“You want me to take her in low and quiet or soften up the entrance first?”

“A quiet approach would be more beneficial to our objective. The less Hive between us and the Unborn Corridor the higher chance we have of diverting any additional energy to Operation Full Moon when we’re done. If we live.”

Lex nodded, twisting the control stick in her hands. She wasn’t the best pilot in the Solar System but she ranked herself up there as one of the better combat pilots… and any chance to do a bombing run was just something she couldn’t refuse to inquire about.

She flipped a switch on the control console above her head, her Ghost - known as GUI - floated next to her.

“Two minutes. Gear check and get ready for transmat. You, too, Phe.”  
As if on cue, the dirtied Hunter sat up from the navigator’s seat. She had it reclining straight back like a bed, her mousy features and dirty blonde hair quickly covered by her helmet and hood. She carelessly flipped the chair back’s release, causing it to slam upright loudly.

Prac looked over at the Hunter and shook his head. He picked up his sword from the weapon’s rack and held it against his shoulder, looking like a regal statue despite the turbulence.

Lex pulled her own helmet on and flipped several more switches on the console. She let go of the control stick and stood up.

“GUI, she’s yours. Put her in low orbit, the moment we’re back outside I want to be off this celestial body.”

“You be-bet, Guardian!” GUI chirped enthusiastically.

The shimmer of the transmaterial curtain passed before all three Guardians and - whether they braced themselves or not - they landed roughly on the Moon’s gray, dusty soil. The few feet of space between where they were materialized and where they had landed was calculated precisely, better to land having to brace your knees than to lose them by being teleported to the ground itself.

Prac stood still, his knees barely bent on his landing. The smooth, red metallic helmet affixed to his shoulders looking from side to side. Phoenix - the Hunter - practically doubled over on landing. She sent the stock of her scout rifle into the dirt to keep herself from face planting while her cape twisted around her waist wildly. Lex was somewhere in between, the inherent tactical training she had in another life kicking in immediately. She had her auto rifle raised up and was scanning the horizon, her posture slightly hunched over for maximum sight picture and weapon stability.

“Unnoticed,” Prac said victoriously. “Not a single shriek. Copies of the map I’ve been able to acquire have been given to your Ghosts, so you only have yourself to blame if you get lost.”

“I’ll still blame you,” Phoenix said. She shook debris from her rifle’s ejection port and roughly whacked the forward assist. The loud click that followed and the flick of her safety proved she was ready, even if she wasn’t acting like it.

“Kids,” Lex turned to look at both of them. “Vanguard is counting on us. Focus, okay?”

Prac and Phoenix both grumbled in their own way. The former saw fit to turn his head away, feigning his own superiority to arguing with the Hunter that he argued with more than anyone else in his entire life. Phoenix shrugged and started ambling towards the entry point that Prac had circled on his map, her Ghost projecting it before her helmet.

Lex followed behind her first, rifle scanning each valley and canyon for potential activity while Prac continued to walk the furthest back, eventually pulling Lex aside.

“Why does she hate me, Banshee?”

Lex sighed, lowering her rifle. She didn’t appreciate the distraction. Or the noise. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s a Hunter and she prefers to be alone. I think she understands why we keep asking for her help, at least.”

“You keep asking for it. I’ve given a list of far more socially acceptable replacements.”

“She’s a lot friendlier than when we first met.”

“Maybe so, though is it a Guardian’s place to mentor one who does not wish to be mentored? She’s been in the Traveler’s Light longer than you have. She’s not a child and you are not her mother or sister.”

“I understand, Prac. That doesn’t mean that she deserves to be abandoned to her own devices, Hunter or no.”

“I did not say she does not deserve help. She has the potential to harm you, that makes the nature of the relationship dangerous. If the Traveler needed only one solution, there would be only one Guardian. The same can be said about people - there is no chosen one to help another.”

“Then next Strike we can bring Carter instead. Just make sure she doesn’t hit on me.”

“Agreed. Your interactions are awkward at best. We’ll focus on fighting the Darkness, as it always should be... but it rarely is.”

Phoenix waited for the rest of her Fireteam, perched on a rock like a bird. She sighed when they finally got close enough to hear it through her helmet and gestured to the half-buried ruin that was circled on the map.

“Your gate was buried, so I made a door.”

The small gate to the Hellmouth looked as if it was never completed, a landslide obscuring most of the doors other than a broken-in portion on the top right. It was just big enough for Lex to fit through, while Prac and Phoenix slipped in easily with their considerably less intrusive frames.

“You must be getting fat,” Phoneix said while Lex wiggled through the hole.

“I’ve always been fat. This is just highlighting my girth.”  
Phoenix laughed out loud, her voice echoing through her helmet and the brutalist corridor of Hive architecture. The lights themselves were off, the portion of the Hellmouth they were in seemingly abandoned due to the landslide that buried the entrance however long ago during the Moon’s quarantine. Prac kept his sub-machine gun trained on every corner, flashlight of his Ghost following his gaze.

Suddenly a lot more serious, Phoenix readied her scout rifle and slowly began pushing forward with Prac, Lex bringing up the rear. Her comm clicked once, Zavala’s voice coming through to the entire team.

“Obelisk, what’s your status?”

“Just entered the Hellmouth through what looks like an old access passage, sir.”

“Good. Full Moon is still pushing through the main gate. Keep me updated.”

Without another word, he clicked off the comms. The Fireteam proceeded down pitch-black corridors, only the occasional - and distant - shriek giving away that anyone or anything was even alive. After nearly ten minutes they were greeted with a fork in the corridor, one ramp going down and the other going up. Prac slowly edged towards the down ramp, all three Guardian’s flashlights turning off as they finally were illuminated.

In true light, the difference between the Hive’s truly alien and intimidating architecture and the moon’s lifeless rock became only slightly less unsettling. The Hive made Lex’s skin crawl in general, seeing the base of operations that they’ve made the entire moon’s core into only made things worse. Their footsteps echoed throughout the cavern-like corridor as they descended into the Hellmouth, eerily quiet aside from the Guardian’s boots on the metallic flooring.

It had felt like a lifetime had passed by the time they were at the end of the ramp and faced with even flooring, though the way the Hellmouth transformed around them proved that they were going the right way. The corridors gave way to large chambers filled with machinery, statues, and supplies. The Hive’s inner fortress almost looked like a spaceship built into the rock, with tubing and jagged pillars sticking out every which way.

Much of it looked like a temple, with tall arched doorways identical to one another that in their construction almost seemed to feel like they were built in reverence to something. As they passed through one of those large arches towards a larger chamber Prac stopped short, his SMG held up. Phoenix and Lex followed in kind, readying their weapons.

“Hive ritual,” he said quietly. “They know we’re here.”

“Weapons ready,” Lex ordered.

“I hate this fucking part,” Phoenix complained.

The inhuman shriek of the Hive echoed throughout the corridors, each successive shriek from another group answering back making it seem as if the bloodthirsty screaming would never end. In a sudden flood, Hive thralls poured from two side entrances in the corridor, as well as the corridor’s end. Dozens of them, more than any on the Fireteam had ever seen in one place before. Only the occasional Acolyte dotted the landscape of bone, flesh, and teeth before them and, on instinct, Phoenix put her foot back as if she were going to retreat and Lex pushed past both her and Prac, kneeling and bringing up a barrier of Light to protect her. As she readied herself, Prac pulled a revolver from the holster at his side, firing it with one-hand as the other held his SMG at the ready.

Together, all three of them unleashed Hell on the Hive. The constant, metallic clink of Phoenix’s rifle joined in late, though once she began firing she didn’t stop. One after another, the heads of the Hive popped like balloons and the floor began to litter with corpses. Prac left little in the way of remains, his revolver using explosive ammunition. Each shot chained another kill with it, resulting in large holes for the Hive behind those dying to fill.

Lex was less showy, focusing on the Acolytes that entered the halls. When they were down, her finger pulled back on her trigger slowly, loosing short controlled bursts from her auto rifle wherever there were more Hive. The narrow nature of the hallway meant that she could support either of her Fireteam’s efforts, though even with the well-coordinated nature of their defense there were so many Hive pouring in from each of the three entrances that it was inevitable that it would become close combat.

Phoenix yanked a grenade off of her belt and hurled it at the horde, its explosion causing a momentary gap, with one of the dead Hive’s worms flying into the air so hard that it stuck to the ceiling like a half-cooked pancake. Lex followed with a grenade of her own, the explosive device leading to a minuscule charge that became a wall of Void energy reaching up taller than any Thrall. Nearly two dozen passed through it, pieces of their bodies melting off or otherwise taking damage.

One of Prac’s revolver rounds landed center mass on a Thrall, the explosive after effect killing eight in one shot thanks to Lex’s grenade weakening them. Together they were all silent, knowing full well that this was to be expected with going after Helgoroth, an ogre bred for his size and brilliance, an ogre bred to be offered to Crota himself upon his awakening. A mission just as important as any other Strike on the Moon, one with just as much chance of failure and permanent death.

“Cursed Thrall!” Prac shouted, gesturing to the left entrance as he reloaded his revolver.

Phoenix turned and released a shot, her accuracy a first-rate performance as it flew between the heads of the writhing mass of Hive. The Cursed Thrall jerked back, screamed, and exploded in a large enough radius to send Thrall bodies against either wall of the corridor. Even though they tuned out the screaming, the inflections differed enough for them to know that it was about to become a much harder fight, harder than it already was with only a few yards of distance between the growing front line of Hive and their defensive position.

Prac and Phoenix preemptively moved to the sides of the corridor, taking half-cover behind pillars. Several Wizards and Knights arrived, the latter pushing themselves through the Thralls with little care for their safety.

“Knights! Twelve, one and three o’clock!” Lex shouted.

Phoenix plugged another Thrall with her scout rifle, a Wizard waving its hand away at the corpse like one would swat at a fly. “Wizards at eight and ten!”

“They’re all standard of the Hidden Swarm. Keep pushing until you hear the Wizard's song,” Prac said before holstering his revolver. “This is the bulk of her defense.”

The Hive were close enough now for the Warlock to use his SMG and he sprayed into the crowd without care to ammunition conservation. He replaced the magazines so quickly that it seemed like he never stopped firing at all, creating a veritable hole in the Hive’s push, all the while dodging Wizard, Knight and Acolyte projectiles.

Lex had scooted back, each spare magazine she dropped being picked up by GUI and returned to her pack for later. When her trigger pull resulted in a mechanical ‘click,’ she switched her rifle out for her shotgun, though the Boomer fire from the Knights shattered her barrier and sent her flying back onto her ass. The stinging pain in her side was quickly healed by GUI before it disappeared from view, hiding in her backpack.

She fired once as she pushed herself to a stand, ejecting the shell when she was on her own two feet and unloading the tube. By the time she was done blasting countless Hive Thralls away, Phoenix had broken through the Solar shields of the Wizards, her practiced shots sounding like a semi-automatic rifle with how fast she was firing. Both Wizards shrieked in pain, one after the other, and they both fell back into the mass of corpses that was by now so tall that the Hive had to climb over their own dead, slowing them down significantly.

“Phoenix, let's make a hole!”

The Hunter let out a wild cry of delight at being unchained, her weapon hanging by its shoulder strap instantly as she aimed with her eyes at the center mass of the Hive. She began to draw back an invisible bowstring, one which materialized in her hands as a bow made of Void and she released an orb-like projectile which sent corpse and live Thrall aside from the center mass of the horde. Every Hive within reach, even the Knights, were quickly tethered to the main ball that sat on the bloodstained floor. Even the worms that crawled underneath their dead hosts found themselves bound together by Void energy.

Phoneix, Prac and Lex reloaded their magazines and opened fire in unison. Each shot or killing blow took out twice as many, the energy of death feeding into the tether, the anchor, and then branching out to all attached to it. In less than ten seconds the entire hallway was cleared of all Hive through the virtue of shared misery, each Knight’s head popping one after another not from any ballistic impact but from the tether that bound them to each Thrall that was put down in a single bullet, as each single bullet was the death of two or three with that damage and pain snowballing until it was an overwhelming avalanche of death.

When the anchor snapped from the ground and floated into nothing peacefully the three Guardians let themselves go slack, with the closest Thrall to them having died only four inches from Lex’s boot. She moved through the mass and pulled out magazines and clips from the Acolytes and Knights, quickly filling her auto rifle magazines with ammunition while Prac and Phoenix did the same.

Prac seemed to be finished first, taking position atop the pile of dead Knights to stare at the enormous, closed double doors at the end of the hall. They were decorated with a series of patterns that neither three had seen before, something that resembled a mural. It was wholly inhuman in its form, biomechanical in appearance yet like with all things Hive very likely organic in its intended function.

Lex stood up after she was finished reloading, GUI scanning the area around them curiously. Prac’s Ghost joined GUI in cataloging the area, mapping it and taking image samples to return to the Tower. Taking off her helmet, she quickly wiped the sweat from her brow before slipping it back on and opening comms with her overwatch.

“Vanguard, this is Obelisk. I think we’ve found the main chamber. We’re going in now.”

It only took a few seconds for Zavala to switch in from his multitude of other Strikes and answer.

“Good work, Obelisk. Be careful out there, if it proves to be too much remember to save your Light for another battle.”

He clicked off without another word and Lex climbed over the chest-high pile of bodies until she was standing next to Prac.

“You okay?” She asked.

“We’re deeper than we’ve ever been. I’ve never seen this part of the Hellmouth.”

Lex patted Prac’s arm. “Then let’s just stop this ritual and get back to the Tower. We don’t need to go any deeper. Get in, get it done, get out. We’re one of many, alright?”

Phoenix grunted in the background, pulling several dead Thrall pieces off of a console to the door. Her Ghost scanned the console, plugged in and quickly began working on unlocking the door. Prac and Lex readied their weapons at the door when the locks began to turn, loudly opening to the ritual chamber.

The ‘song’ of the Hive ritual was in full swing, the sound nothing short of unpleasant. The chortled, throaty cries of the Hive almost sounded human in parts as if someone was punched in the throat and gurgling for help over a discordant melody that meant nothing to human ears. As more of the chamber was revealed to Lex and her Fireteam, they quickly pushed in through the retracting doors and swept their weapons up and down the militaristic, almost featureless, ritual chamber.

At the far end of the chamber were three Wizards, all floating before an enormous purple dome that throbbed with energy, sounding off through the Wizard’s singing as if something was inside, pounding on the walls of the dome for release. The Fireteam stopped half-way through the room, keeping to cover. Their voices were muffled in their helmets, communication kept to the comm channel.

Lex slowly unpacked the rectangle attached to her back, pulling the tube until it clicked softly and unfolding the pistol grip, scope and shoulder rest. When her rocket launcher was sufficiently assembled she placed it on the cover in front of her and took aim at one of the Wizards. Phoenix and she had done this a dozen times before so the Hunter knew to place her scout rifle down and pull out her sniper rifle. In the Golden Age, it would’ve been considered an anti-material rifle. Now? A medium caliber sniper rifle for long-distance use. The punch it packed made it more than enough for a Wizard’s shield.

The sword that Prac loved so much was pulled from the sheath in the small of his back, both his SMG and revolver fastened in their holsters. He had to fight from flexing Solar energy, as he didn’t want to warn the Wizards before their ambush was set. He stood beside Lex, back against a pillar and clear of the rocket launcher’s backblast. He wiped at the blade’s surface idly, waiting for the others in his Fireteam to start, what Phoenix once argued, were the “festivities.”

“Count it down. From five.”

“You got it, Banshee. Breaking the shield in five…”

The rocket launcher’s targeting reticule powered on and Lex centered it on the middle Wizard, the center dot barely obscuring the floating spellcaster’s torso. Her finger slipped down the trigger guard, digit curling until she felt the metal of the trigger itself.

“Four…”

She paced her breathing, lowering the sway in her body. The reticule stopped bouncing up and down by half, swaying only occasionally as the rocket launcher somehow seemed more like a comfortable hug than anything else. Lex always enjoyed the heat of a discharge when she was in an environment that allowed for her helmet to be off. 

“Three…”

Prac braced his legs against the ground, both hands gripping the pommel of his blade. He was more than ready to jump out and begin slaying the Hive, though even if they were ahead of schedule he was just all that more pessimistic to think that the Ogre had already been created, an Unborn transformed into something hellish and cruel, a creature of pain and malice made manifest.

“Two…”

Phoenix was at the top of her game. Three shots in one second seemed a little like child’s play, though she had a height advantage from where she was sitting as well as a crisp sight picture with the new scope that Lex bought her. Even if she did travel everywhere with Prac, Phoenix kind of liked hanging out with both of them.

“One…”

After all, nobody else would’ve brought her to the Moon on the Vanguard’s ticket with an important mission to directly support the ongoing operations into the Hellmouth. Which, Phoenix thought, was a really stupid name.

“Fire.”

Phoenix squeezed the trigger three times, her scope pointed center mass at the Wizard’s shielding each time. They shattered visibly like panes of glass, each Wizard’s dirge suddenly choking in their throats. The loud roar of Lex’s rocket launcher seemed almost to end the song like cannon fire in a classical overture, the projectile crossing the gap in the blink of an eye. The middle Wizard’s solar shield was forming in its hands when the rocket slammed into the Wizard’s side, the pointed tip of the projectile burrowing with a loud, saw-like whirr before going quiet.

The other two Wizard’s managed to get their shields up in time when the middle one exploded, cut in half from the waist down from the specialized rocket. Nothing identifiable was left other than chunks of meat and bone, and the shock wave from the blast sent the other two Wizards reeling back into the wall behind them.

Phoenix set her sniper rifle down and picked up her scout rifle, firing off a quick burst of semi-automatic shots into the right Wizard’s shield again, forcing it to hover behind a pillar as it shrieked for help. Lex, meanwhile, fired another rocket at the Wizard on the left. The shield shattered and it left the Wizard singed, though the shield alone absorbed enough of the blast so that it could keep fighting. She quickly broke her rocket launcher down and placed it on her back, shouldering her auto rifle and coming out from behind cover.

She walked across the room, jogging between cover while firing as the Wizards fought back. One well-placed shot hit Phoenix right in the helmet, sending her body flying back against the wall like a handful of putty. Her Ghost quickly brought her back, though Phoenix’s cursing on the comm let Prac and Lex know that she just got unlucky.

Prac stood out from behind the pillar, his helmet turning from side to side as he cracked his neck. He hated the habit, though what was one ritual for a reclusive scholar about to bring death to the minions of the Darkness. He stood into view right as Lex began taking fire, blasts of energy from the left-most Wizard ricocheting off of the ground and nearby cover. One blast clipped her side, forcing Lex onto her knee. She crawled into cover and switched to her shotgun, ready to turn the engagement into something close quarters.

With the Wizard firing at her not directed at Prac, she weaved between columns until she was beside the Wizard. Four shots from her shotgun caused the Wizard’s shield to break, pellets piercing bone and flesh and forcing a horrifying screech to escape the Wizard. Lex felt it in her teeth and as the Wizard turned and readied a blast of energy at her Prac jumped into the air and brought his sword down in a vertical arc with as much force as he could muster.

Like a missile strike his sword cut the Wizard into two clean pieces, front and back halves, and his sword clattered into the ground with a shockwave. He pulled himself to his feet and made sure the job was done, decapitating the Wizard before cleaning his blade off using the cloth of his robe.

Prac was stuck in the side several times by blasts of Darkness from the remaining Wizard, his body skidding on the floor with his sword in hand. Now healed, Lex dove before him and brought up a barrier between him and the Wizard. The shriek of hatred that the Wizard released was loud and powerful enough to shake the entire chamber, though their additional attacks only cracked the barrier that Lex created while Prac’s Ghost resurrected him.

“This one is a little tougher than the others!” Phoenix said, almost a little panicked, “I got two rounds left on my sniper.”

The Wizard flew around the room with an uncanny agility, the dome that they had been performing a ritual with showing cracks on its surface.

“Alright!” Lex called out. She ran from the safety of the barrier, firing at the Wizard, to crouch beside a pillar about thirty meters away. “Pop the shield, Phe. I’ll slingshot with Prac and we’ll take this fucker out.”

“My pleasure, mom!”

The awkward silence on the comms created by Phoenix calling Lex ‘mom’ was drowned out by gunfire and combat, as well as Prac nearly getting his head blown off.

“You are never living this down, Hunter.” Prac responded in an uncanny, giddy tone of voice. He sounded like he was crying from laughter.

Phoenix filled the line with an abundance of foul language strung together into an enormous run-on sentence of insults and curses as she grabbed her rifle and pulled the bolt back, making sure she had one in the chamber. She released it and shouldered her rifle, taking up a new position as the Wizard flew every which way, firing off bolts of the dark arcane at each of them repeatedly, succeeding in keeping Prac and Lex forced into cover.

She stayed behind cover until a quiet moment, then she pulled from behind cover and fired off both shots in the same second. The sound of the barrier-shattering was the signal Prac and Lex needed and as the Wizard turned, Lex was enveloped in Void energy, rushing with a shield made of dark matter towards Prac. She flung the shield at the Wizard halfway to reaching her ally and the shield soared through the air and cracked the Wizard in the gut, slicing through flesh and effectively stunning the creature from the force of the blow.

When Lex reached Prac, the Warlock dropped to a crouch and readied both of his hands in front of him. Lex leapt over him and as she was mid-air Prac sent a burst of Solar energy to Lex’s back. She felt the sting of the burn scorching her armor and skin, though at the moment the kill was all that mattered. The momentum from Prac’s solar blast was enough to send Lex at the Wizard like an Awoken rocket, the Wizard looking up just in time for Lex to crash the face of her Void shield into the Wizard’s head, sending it crashing against the wall behind it so hard that it crushed its large, bony head like a party popper.

Lex’s shield faded and the Void pulled off of her like a mist, leaving her hanging onto the Warlock’s corpse as it skidded down the wall like a sled. When it landed on the floor and crashed into an altar Lex flew into the air momentarily before Phoenix jumped mid-air to catch her hand, the Hunter controlling the momentum so that they spun around for a single rotation before landing on their feet.

“Mom?!” Lex shouted, smacking the side of Phoenix’s helmet. “You’re older than I am, you little shit!”

Phoenix punched Lex in the chest plate, flipping her off. “Fuck you, fuck both of you. This is why I work alone.”

As she grumbled and ran off to pick up her rifle and Prac waltzed over to offer Lex a handshake.

“I attempted to use less fire,” he said proudly. “Your armor didn’t burn off this time.”

Lex took Prac’s hand and dragged him into a quick hug.

“We’re getting better at it. Next time I won’t have to worry about GUI reconstructing my shoulders if we keep this up.”

The two glanced at the cracked dome. The Wizard’s song had stopped with all of them dead, though the dome itself was behaving like an egg readying for something to hatch from it. The constant shifting gave them both pause on what to do, normally they had interrupted Rituals on the precipice and it had stopped anything from happening.

Phoenix had already set back up on her perch, not wanting to talk but knowing full well that if something happened she’d rather be up in her nest with a scout rifle than on the floor level with something evil and snacky for flesh.

“You’re the scholar,” Lex said to Prac. “What’s your assessment?”

“As if my habits have not rubbed off on you. I believe we are seeing an Unborn become a Reorn.”

“I’ve never fought a Reborn. I don’t think Phe has either.”

“I only know that they are stronger than themselves pre-rebirth. Ikora taught me of their tactics. They are smart, brutally effective and their magic would rival those three Wizards combined.”

“So what’s the plan? How do we take it down?”

The dome cracked, a shaft of dark energy shining through the newly created hole. The purple light inside was so bright that it was almost blinding. Prac and Lex backed up until they were back towards the center of the room. Behind them in the corridor that they had faced the Hive swarm came a distant shriek of another Wizard which was responded to by the worst birdsong in the galaxy: dozens, maybe hundreds, of additional Hive responding to the call of a Hive far up the food chain.

Prac had opened his mouth to answer but came up with nothing. He gripped his sword and held it against his shoulder, his metallic helmet offering Lex a look that she somehow understood despite the featureless visage.

“They know we’re here,” Lex said before cursing. “How much time until this ugly bastard hatches?”

“Soon,” Prac answered. “If I had to guess I would say… quite soon. Helgoroth is not one to wait, it seems.”

The dome shook again, more pieces of it shattering.

“Correction: he’s on his way now. Fight or flee, Banshee. What is it?”

“I find it funny how you leave all the difficult decisions to me, Prac.” She paused, looking over to Phoenix’s makeshift nest. “Phe! We’re going after the big boy. Shoot when you can, where you can. Let us know when reinforcements show up and then cover our backs. GUI, get back to that terminal and see if you can’t get a map out of it with a clear path elsewhere.”

Lex looked around the chamber. There were roughly five other doors other than the main one they came through and all of them were quiet and motionless. GUI flew off to the terminal, her voice coming into Lex through the shared comm channel only moments after her disappearance towards the console.

“There is a hall nearby that lea-leads to the main sinkhole’s outer wall. One well-placed explosive would give us a window to juh-jump out if we needed to.”

“Alright, GUI. I got one last splitter rocket. Think that will do it?”

“Considering the compo-composition of the structures and the reliance on the moon’s natural rock for many of the walls, ceilings and structural weak points I would sa-say that it would be overkill, probably. Don’t quote me on that. It will work, I think. Ballistics are not my specialty.”

“So we have our escape route. Get back here, Gu. Let’s wake the baby.”

Prac readied his revolver in both hands and Lex pulled up her auto rifle. Seemingly done with waiting, Phoenix released several rounds in the dome. Each successive shot earned the Fireteam a loud groan from the interior as well as significant tectonic shifting. Like an animal, the Ogre inside began to pull itself from the dome. Clawed hands quadrupled the length of Prac and double the height of Phoenix tore open the glass-like barrier that the dome had created and with a deafening roar, the Ogre released itself from its rebirth.

Larger than any Ogre they had faced before as well as significantly beefier and more vicious looking, Helgoroth began to scream as if it were in pain, hands ripping at its own skin before freeing itself from the last vestiges of its shell. Seeing Lex and Prac, Helogorth threw its arms out and roared fiercely at them, all sharp teeth and spit.

It was all they needed to open fire. Prac emptied the chamber repeatedly, each shot causing minimal damage to the Ogre while Lex’s sustained flurry of fire seemed only to agitate the massive beast. The scout rifle rounds from Phoenix’s rifle seemed to penetrate the Ogre’s skin, though if it had any ability to feel pain then it didn’t show it. The skin on the Ogre’s featureless forehead began to bubble, like a pot of water left on the burner, and it released a powerful sustained beam of Void energy at Lex. She ran to cover as quickly as she could, with GUI following behind her and directing her path. The beam followed as the Ogre pointed its head, Lex grabbed GUI out of the air to keep her safe as the beam tore through one of Lex’s legs, her last action before another death being to slide GUI across the ground and into cover.

The little Ghost screamed out in terror, bobbing up and down as it fretted. The beam made ugly work of GUI’s Guardian, though Prac came in to distract it so that GUI could bring Lex back. The Warlock fired off both weapons, one in each hand, with the SMG acting as a machine for short, controlled bursts between precision shots from the revolver. Each reload was lightning quick, with Prac looking as if he were dancing with every moment. The beam from the Ogre’s forehead had faded, but Prac’s increasing volume of fire caused him to become the next target.

Lex rose with a gasp, clutching her rifle in both hands as Prac flew across the battlefield, hovering between pillars as he danced from one, then to another, using anything he could for a handhold as he unloaded into the Ogre’s face. His acrobatics had a limit and right as Lex readied her rifle she saw the Ogre’s fist collide with Prac’s body, crushing him against the pillar. He fell to the ground, limp and lifeless, though the shimmer of his nearby Ghost gave Lex some relief as she opened fire again, screaming wildly for the Ogre’s attention.

None in the Fireteam heard the shrieking of the Wizard grow louder, nor the clarion call for as many Hive as possible to assemble with it as they made their way to the ritual chamber.

“How much more is this big fucker going to take?!” Phoenix snarled as she pumped round after round of her kinetic scout rifle into the Ogre’s weak points. Blood streamed down from each entry wound, though if anything it seemed like each successive shot was only pissing it off.

For a “mindless” beast of rage, it moved agile and with purpose. Each grenade thrown was kicked aside or quickly dodged and it had begun to weave between the pillars to avoid concentrated fire from the three Guardians. When Prac got up, the Ogre had thrown a nearby piece of debris at him before charging, the follow-up punch sending him back down to the floor for another round of his Ghost’s TLC.

Lex fared slightly better, dying several more times from the eye beam, being crushed, and simply having the Ogre headbutt her across the room onto something sharp enough to impale her. Battle fatigue had begun to take place, each death more painful than the last and each new plan or move sloppier than the last, not as effective, or the Ogre simply learned how to counter them effectively.

Prac kept quiet as he planned his next attack, his sword the weapon of choice as he let Lex and Phoenix bait the beast into a corner. Using the Ogre’s blindspot he rushed in and put all of his force into a leaping strike, the Warlock turning into a Solar-powered meteor as his blade dug into the back of the Ogre’s neck, sliding down until it had cut straight through it. While not a killing blow for such a large Hive, the blade had opened enough of a space for it to be all the slower, a little less careful and more intent on killing than having a strategy to fight with.

With her shotgun out, Lex ran and climbed onto the Ogre’s back, using the flaps of skin that Prac had created to shove her shotgun barrel into the Ogre’s wound. She pulled the trigger and cocked her gun with one hand, struggling to hang on as each shot made the Ogre twitch and flail. It kept the Ogre in place long enough for Phoenix to have a full magazine… and a nice, squishy weak spot to do repeated shots on.

As the Ogre prepared for another beam strike, she aimed for those boil-like protrusions on its smooth head and fired off her entire magazine in the same half-meter radius. By the fourth shot she had broken through to the skull and by the tenth, she had created a grapefruit-sized hole. When her entire twenty-round magazine was empty, the Ogre’s beam was arcing through the room wildly as it enraged. Pillar after pillar had collapsed as it screamed louder than anyone thought possible, the path of destruction ending Lex and Prac’s lives nearly four times each until they were able to make distance and start firing at the spot that Phoenix had made.

“Triple whammy! On my mark!”

Lex’s call for a plan left Phoenix cackling madly and the Titan herself slid between the Ogre’s legs so that it would face Phoenix and Prac. As it raised its fists up in an attempt to bring them down on Lex she called out to her Fireteam.

“Now!”

Lex, Prac and Phoenix all threw their grenades into the large hole in the Ogre’s head all at once. One after another they landed inside of it and exploded, the mixture of Void and Solar creating a burnt sienna shaft of fire that went out the back of the Ogre’s head and shot out both ends of where its ears would have been. When the grenades died down the empty metal husks fell out of the Ogre’s head like marbles, the disfigured shells clattering to the floor. The Ogre looked like it was paused from its last action, still half-way between smushing Lex under fist.

Phoenix wasted no time, sending a round into its head. Whatever it had inside of its skull began to drip out in a thick, discolored ooze and the Ogre fell over like a tree, smashing into a pillar and cracking it down to the base. Lex’s cry of victory was cut short before it even started, with Phoenix on the comms immediately.

“Contact! Ho-... contact! Hive! They’re here!”

Lex and Prac turned to see the hallway filled with living Hive, with a cadre of Knights, Wizards and a field of Acolytes and Thralls. Some of them were already opening fire when Phoenix put out the alert. The more that approached, the more that filled the hall. A red-toned Wizard with an enormous crested head hovered above them all, their song starting in that same discordant, uncomfortable melody that sounded more like a dozen heavy smokers drowning.

Prac opened fire as soon as they crossed the threshold to the door, his revolver emptied in the blink of an eye.

“Banshee! Where’s our exit?”

Phoenix fired off several rounds mid-air as she jumped down, each one popping the head of a Thrall as they pushed into the main chamber. Lex turned and brought up GUI, using her as a reference for the Hive technology.

“Just let her do it!” Phoenix shouted, switching to her SMG.

The door slid open loudly with a long, narrow hallway ahead of them. Lex turned around and began firing, covering for her Fireteam.

“Don’t tell me what to do! Door’s open. Let’s go! Out, out!”

“One thousand, fi-five hundred and sixty meters until the wall, tea-team! We can do it!” GUI said.

Prac went face down into the chamber’s floor, having taken a Knight’s round to the back of his head. As his Ghost brought him back, Phoenix stood beside him and kept him covered. When he was back up she dragged the Warlock by his robe and pushed him towards the door. The narrow hall was equal parts a savior and a death trap, as each ranged shot sent down the corridor risked hitting one or more of them, though that did mean that each Hive had to plow through the hall in two-by-two, with the large Wizard and most of the Knights having to find another way around with so many crammed into such a tight space.

Lex was last in line, with Prac first and Phoenix between them. Occasionally one of them would look back and fire, through the density of the Hive’s approach made running a much more solid plan of action. Eventually the hallway opened up, and each turn was accompanied by GUI yelling which direction to go in. When they would run into smaller Hive patrols it was almost exclusively Thralls and Acolytes, those easily dealt with.

“One thousand meters le-le-left! Right turn.”

They turned into a wider series of chambers, fighting their way through them with ease. The howling and sound of war behind them grew louder with each passing moment. The more space they had to move around was the more space that the Hive had to catch up with them. More than once, one of them looked back and caught sight of a particularly enthusiastic Thrall leading the charge.

“Biomass estimated triple the size of the initial force. Increasing to quadruple the size. Advise caution, odds of victory insubstantial.” Prac’s Ghost spoke out.

Phoenix raised her SMG and cut down a group of Thralls exiting from a side-passage. From the appearance of the chambers, they were close to where the Hive were nursed. By the time they realized it, Hive were pouring out of every single doorway they found, including the one leading to their potential exit. Lex started using her shotgun like a club, the butt of it stained with Hive bits and slightly bent from the consistent use as a melee weapon.

“We’re making it worse!” Phoenix screamed fearfully. “We need to get out of here!”

“Five hundred met-me-... meters!” GUI sounded exasperated.

The mass of Thralls behind them had started to converge, the group led by the Wizard had mixed with those awoken by the Guardian’s rampage. Lex holstered her shotgun and called for covering fire on her. Phoenix moved to stand in front of Lex, mowing down anything in their way with her SMG. While running and assembling a rocket launcher was awkward, it was life or death - permanent death - at this point.

With her rocket launcher assembled and the rocket loaded into the firing chamber, all Lex had to do was point and fire. If GUI was doing her job, her jumpship would be just outside the wall and ready to sweep them all away. With the size of the chambers having increased steadily, they were receiving ranged fire once more. Prac and Lex took several hits, though it was nothing life-threatening and they continued on to the best of their abilities.

“One hundred met-me-... OH LIGHT!”

GUI’s exclamation heralded in the arrival of another Ogre, though it was smaller in size than the last. It blocked their escape, and even the split-second of recognizing this enemy was enough for the rest of the horde to become visible. They’d be swarmed in moments unless they made a move. Lex almost readied her rocket launcher, remembering that it was their ticket out through the thick moon rock. Phoenix almost dropped her rifle, her gaze drawn to the space between the Ogre’s legs.

She made a quick break for it, attempting to slide between the Ogre’s legs. The Ogre lifted its foot and stamped down on her cape, causing the Hunter’s head to reel back and slam against the pavement. Her Ghost was intact and after the resurrection she found herself grabbed by the Ogre and slammed on the floor before Lex.

“Go,” Prac said evenly as he unsheathed his sword. He twirled it in one hand, readying it for a strike. His helmet shifted between the Ogre and the horde, the horde growing close with every second. “I’ll bring him away.”

Lex spared a glance to Prac as she helped Phoenix to her feet, the Hunter looking down at her rifle - and the fact that it was bent in an L-shape from the Ogre’s strength - in a weak, scared panic. She had her SMG out and pointed it towards the Ogre. Prac put his hand over the barrel and lowered it slowly, staring up at the Ogre. Lex wasn’t sure of what other option she had, and she wanted to protest.

But no words formed in her mouth.

“Banshee. Take Phoenix to the side. I will draw him away. Bask in the Traveler’s Light for me when you get home.”

She nodded and pulled Phoenix to a side alcove, only slightly out of sight. Phoenix struggled in Lex’s grip, though the Titan was strong enough to handle the Hunter. Prac tore the Cormorant Seal off of his arm, tossing it to Lex. She was able to awkwardly catch it with one finger, gripping it tightly. He nodded to her before unleashing the flame inside of him, hovering in the air, a second blade made of solar energy forming in his left hand. He flung it at the Ogre, forcing it into a response. The Ogre roared and primed its forehead beam at Prac.

Prac flew like a demon towards the horde on the other side of the room, peppering the mass of Thralls and Acolytes with explosive bolts from his flaming sword, the beam following behind him just a few seconds too slow. As if he were a jumpship on a bombing run he flew until he had created a valley. When he landed, he jumped into the mass of Hive, forcing the Ogre’s beam to cut through its own kin.

Enraged, the Ogre stomped off from the hall and charged into the mass of Hive. Even with it obscuring a large portion of Lex’s vision, she could still see the flame of Prac’s sword and the steel of his physical blade cutting through the Thralls in droves. She pulled Phoenix with her, the Hunter stunned by Prac’s sacrifice. As they disappeared into the hall, the last thing they were able to see was the Wizard and her entourage entering the chamber, with more Knights and minor Wizards than either Guardian had ever seen before.

Lex didn’t stop until they were past the corner.

“Here!” GUI said loudly. “Fire at the wall! Open it up! I have th-th-the Queen outside!”

Leveling the rocket launcher, Lex fired her remaining ordnance. After she fired she curled around Phoenix, who was still staring down the hall as if Prac would have come running any moment. The end of the hall in front of them began to collapse in chunks, large portions spilling outside as the level below them gave way, the shifting ground stopping only a few feet before them.

As the dust settled, Lex spotted her ship, the empty cockpit aimed directly at them. She let out a sigh of relief and shook Phoenix to attention.

“Phe! Phe! We gotta leave. We’re a few yards short of transmat, so you have to jump.”

Phoenix pointed her SMG at the hallway back where they came from, “Gotta… gotta get Prac. His Ghost’ll need th-...”

Lex looked back, almost as if she was going to consider Phoenix’s request now that the hallway was clear. The howl of the Hive changed her mind, and if there was any lingering doubt that remained it was quickly erased by the sounds of Thralls spilling into the hall, and one of them stopping in the doorway. When it flexed its arms out and roared at them, Lex took her opportunity to get Phoenix out first. She dropped her rocket launcher and grabbed Phoenix by the belt and the neck, hurling her out towards her jumpship. The moon gravity made it considerably easier on Phoenix, but she was still thrown like a child.

Phoenix’s body flickered and disappeared from view around the halfway point, right when her trajectory was beginning to descend. Lex kicked her rocket launcher at the screaming Thrall, the scope block hitting it so hard in the mouth that its jaw unhinged to the left at an awkward, broken angle.

Turning towards the hole she took a running start and jumped out into the light of space. Like with Phoenix, when she reached the half-way point she dematerialized, suddenly reappearing in the cargo hold of her ship. The moment her feet were on the ground the jumpship jerked vertically and send Phoenix flying across the hold, with Lex holding on to a guide rail and hanging there until GUI stabilized gravity control… and Phoenix thudded to the ground loudly.

Lex landed on both feet, throwing her helmet aside as she made her way to the cockpit, settling into the pilot’s chair. She all but shoved GUI out of her vision as she took the control stick and flipped off the switches that gave GUI piloting ability. She jammed the throttle as far as it could go and she tried her hardest to focus on flying. Not thinking. Not knowing that her friend had likely died his final death, both him and his Ghost nothing but a resource for the Hive.

“Lex, I ca-can fly for you. I can bring us back to the tow-...”

“I’m good, Gu.” She hadn’t grown accustomed to lying. It just wasn’t in her nature. Her voice was sharp, cracked with grief. “Call Zavala. Tell him what happened, that we’re on the way back. Strike complete. Good fucking job, Operation Obelisk.”

“Hey-... no. Hey.” GUI took a nurturing tone with Lex, the nervousness gone from her voice. “Don’t do this t-t… don’t do this. You did nothing wrong. Praxic Warlocks see self-sacrifice as the hi-...”

 

“Just fucking call Zavala! Tell him we accomplished the mission. Get out of the cockpit.”

GUI’s lens focused on Lex’s face. “But that’s where you ar-are.”

“Check on Phe. Lock the door behind you until we land.”

“I don’t understand, Guardian. We’re a team.”

Lex grit her teeth, turning to look back at GUI. “I said get the fuck out, Gu! Take a hint! Check on Phe-... fucking-... just go.”

GUI floated, unsure on how to proceed. Slowly, she began to move for the door to the cockpit. Every inch was accompanied by a look towards the back of Lex’s head as if she were waiting for Lex to cancel her request. When she as floating by the doorframe and no acknowledgment came she hesitated to close the door, not enjoying the idea of not seeing her Guardian. Or helping. Leaving didn’t seem like helping, it seemed like doing the opposite.

When her voice started and she had hoped to voice this concern, Lex looked back and judged the door clearance. She slammed her hand on a console button which forced the door closed in GUI’s face. Crying wasn’t something a Ghost could accomplish, though that one action alone felt like a death of her own. Like one of her Guardian’s hundreds, it was a pain she didn’t think possible.

Her voice even sounded strained and upset as she connected to the Vanguard channel.

“Vanguard, this is Obelisk. Strike is a success. We… lost our Warlock. I repeat, we los-lost our Warlock to the Hive.”


End file.
